4oo 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
Cape of Good Hope, and have got up to 30° of latitude, in the Ethiopic Ocean, 
you no longer meet with any of these long seas of Europe, and of the west of 
southern Africa. In this ocean the waves are short and divided. These seas 
frequently strain the ships much more than the long waves, particularly after a gale, 
as the wind increases the division of these waves, so as to give them the shape and 
size of sugar loaves, which proves always very distressing, and sometimes very inju¬ 
rious to ships. 
“ The reason why the sea is so high at the Cape of Good Hope, and that it is less 
so at Cape Horn, appears to me to be as follows: beyond the former cape, between 
the Tropics, and in the different parts of India, the sea forms, as it were, a kind 
of bay, sprinkled with isles and comprehended within coasts, which, though at a 
great distance from each other, are the cause, nevertheless, of the periodical winds 
which blow there. The sea, therefore, may be said to be confined between those 
parallels. 
“ When you are once got to the Cape of Good Hope, the waters appear to be 
no longer in a state of confinement, but are entirely free, and left, as it were, to 
themselves, through an immense space of latitude and longitude. The west winds 
are then at liberty to extend themselves, and to raise up the sea at the Cape, while 
the immense bank at the point of this Cape contributes, with the wind, to swell the 
waters of this part of the ocean. 
Birds. 
“ I remarked that the Damiers quitted us at 30° and some minutes of latitude, 
and that we found them also in the same degree; so that, these birds do not go as 
far as the tropic. It appears that they delight in the west winds, and that the nature 
of the general winds drives them from their limits. 
“ The Paille en Cul is altogether different. It would be curious to know the 
precise latitude which forms, as it were, the boundary of these Damiers. 
“ We found ourselves on the 23d of June in the latitude of the Trialles , at 125 0 
of longitude; the charts place them in 119 0 . During the night, we run on short 
tacks in the offing, from the fear of falling in with them. We passed the whole of 
the 24th without seeing any thing; and I thought it very singular that we did not 
even see any birds, which are certain indications of land or insulated rocks. We 
saw two Paille en Culs- } but it is well known that these birds are frequently seen at 
